Become parables

When the sage says: "Go over," he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labour were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least ...

... Concerning this a man once said: "Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares."
Another said: "I bet that is also a parable."
The first said: "You have won."
The second said: "But unfortunately only in parable."
The first said: "No, in reality: in parable you have lost."

From Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes. In German and English (New York, 1946).

The town in the country: autumn

Climbing across

Transcendentalism, as viewed by its disciples,  was a pilgrimage from the idolatrous world of creeds and rituals to the temple of the Living God in the soul. It was a putting to silence of tradition and formulas, that the Sacred Oracle might be heard through intuitions of the single-eyed and pure-hearted.

William Henry Channing, quoted in P. Miller (ed.), The American Trancendentalists. Their Prose and Poetry (New York, 1957).

(Definition of to transcend: from the Latin transcendere, to climb across, thus to journey beyond the limits of everyday habits.)

Mastery of a new game

Today, we consider psychogeography and the derive to be provisional disciplines, methodically defined, with which to experiment on some aspects of the construction of ambiance and new situationist comportments. We think that the transmission of the results, even those apparently derisory, is the capital problem of psychogeography and that, through this transmission alone, it will be in relation with the architecture that we must invent. I believe that, at the moment in which we have begun to experiment with the derive, this activity has for many of us a meaning that is more directly moving. Perhaps there exists a more irrational tendency, a tendency to expect the discovery of a kind of psychogeographical Great Passage, beyond which we will attain mastery of a new game: the adventures of our lives themselves.

From Guy Debord's preface to Ralph Rumney, Psychogeographical Venice (Paris, 1957).

A whole new field ...

Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited. Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves. My thoughts are my company. They have a certain individuality and separate existence, aye, personality. Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and then brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it was possible to labour and to think. Thought begat thought.

From Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861, edited by Damion Searles (New York, 2009), entry for Jan. 22. 1852.

Another 30 Days Wild-ish

01

A cold, damp start 

good for the slugs and snails.

02

On a cold, dark night 

vague impressions of a forgotten summer.

03

Half-term 

observing the Wild 

through mist and double-glazing.

04

Love-in-the-mist, purple wisteria:

direct action and mutual aid 

enjoyed in ordinary trees and gardens.

05

Basho by the roadside 

Bukowski by the bedside:

each wild in his own way.

06

Swifts gliding high 

in the Himalayan-blue sky.

07

Storms forecast, darkening sky 

planes thunder overhead.

08

09

Bees prowling among the flowerheads 

a heron swoops across the pond, but circles off.

10

11

Floating after swimming 

water soft and supportive all around.

12

The Great White Wonder 

playing fast and loose with his own classics:

then in comes my wild one
with her own song.

13

I love the landscape, because it is so sincere.

It never cheats me.

It never jests.

It is cheerfully, musically earnest.

I lie and rely on the earth.

Thoreau

14

Into the forest of Johann Sebastian Bach.

15

Cedars at the mercy of wind

Are often very much troubled,

Often they are overthrown.

Set your ideas in front of God,

To hostile barking pay no heed:

That’s not what his word lays down.

BWV 150

16

The scent of some flowers 

is just a change in the air.

Today’s soundtrack is Fallen Angels 

and the Basement Tapes.

17

18

Wandering in the Edgelands:

development there is filling in 

but also opening up.

19

Tonight’s damp air has the softness of water
like swimming

but the swifts just keep on darting around up there.

20

Strawberry Moon behind those purple clouds:

it’s peeped out once to remind me I’d forgotten it was there.

The later, Full Moon Rising: beyond words 

apparently not noticed by many of the busy passers-by.

21

The strong smell of elderflower 

a blackbird keeping an eye on his mate

and in the background Uncle Bob singing ‘it had to be you’.

22

Taking in the colour, shape and markings of a leaf 

looking up and seeing the seedpods down beneath

then further into the depths of the tree:

breath-taking complexity of a great city.

23

And then the heavens opened
how wild will the voters be?

24

At least the weather’s cleared 

cool, but with sunny spells
the calm after the storm, or before it?

25

How to deal with slugs and snails 

a hail storm two inches deep
then Mozart’s Requiem to thunderous applause.

26

What turmoil in the garden 

wreckage everywhere
we’ll have to wait to see what Mother Earth can do.

27

So very cold this afternoon 

a most unpleasant month of June.

28

What’s it like out there?

29

Every place is a gateway 

to the beyond within your mind.

30

Just a few minutes of hail
I’ll be clearing up for weeks.

Luxurious growth

The three months of Summer are called the period of luxurious growth.

The breaths of Heaven and Earth intermingle and are beneficial.

Everything is in bloom and begins to bear fruit.

After a night of sleep people should get up early in the morning.

They should not weary during daytime and they should not allow their minds to become angry.

They should enable the best parts of their body and spirit to develop; they should enable their breath to communicate with the outside world; and they should act as though they loved everything outside.

All this is in harmony with the atmosphere of Summer and all this is the method for the protection of one’s development.

From The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, translated by Ilza Veith (Berkeley, 1966).

Japanese Tea in the woods

 

 

To be one with nature

Saigyo in traditional poetry, Sogi in linked verse, Sesshu in painting, Rikyu in tea ceremony, and indeed all who have achieved real excellence in any art, possess one thing in common, that is, a mind to obey nature, to be one with nature, throughout the four seasons of the year.

From Matsuo Basho 'The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel', translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa in The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (London, 1966).

Refugee Tales

... For all that the Tales focused attention on traumatic and unjust events, the walk itself was charged with relief. For those of us who had been detained, this sense of relief came from being freely out and about, a way of being in space that for some hadn't been available for several years. For others the relief came of ocupying a space in a way that was not governed by the prevailing discourse.

The walking itself was the key. As the environment altered day by day, so the project's shared reality itself became dynamic. With each new situation - each new formation of people or landscape - new possibilities of conversation emerged. Other forms of conduct were not just theoretically possible but were, however temporarily, actually the case ...

From David Herd on Refugee Tales in Resurgence 295, March/April 2016.

The beginning and development of life

The three months of spring are called the period of the beginning and development of life.
The breaths of Heaven and Earth are prepared to give birth; thus everything is developing and flourishing.
After a night of sleep people should get up early in the morning; they should walk briskly around the yard; they should loosen their hair and slow down their body movements; by these means they can fulfill their wish to live healthfully.
During this period one's body should be encouraged to live and not be killed; one should give to it freely and not take away from it; one should reward it and not punish it.
All this is in harmony with the breath of Spring and all this is the method for the protection of one's life.

From The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, translated by Ilza Veith (Berkeley, 1966).

Untitled

Approaching the Chinese:
Nature sustains itself
without my words.

On Cold Mountain Road

On Cold Mountain Road
no one arrives
those who walk it
are called ten names
cicadas sing
crows don't screech
yellow leaves fall
white clouds sweep
rocks are huge
woods are deep
I live here alone
I'm called the Guide
look around
what are my signs

From The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, translated by Red Pine (Port Townsend, 2000).